asked that she might have a son of irresistible prowess and valour, who should destroy Indra. The Muni promised to grant this request on one condition. "You shall bear a son," he said, "who shall slay Indra, if with thoughts wholly pious, and person entirely pure, you carefully carry the babe in your womb for a hundred years." Diti accepted the boon with this condition. Indra hearing of this, tried his best to distract her mind, and so prevent the birth of this wonderful child. When ninety-nine years had passed, an opportunity offered itself. Diti retired to rest one night without having washed her feet, and thus violated a rule of ceremonial purity. Indra, ever-watchful, availing himself of this neglect, was able to accomplish his purpose. With his thunderbolt he cut the embryo into seven parts. The children cried bitterly, and Indra was unable to console them. Incensed at their obstinacy in crying, he cut each of these seven parts into seven, and thus formed the forty-nine Maruts. The name Maruts was given to them from the words "Ma rodih " (Weep not), used by Indra when trying to quiet them; and they became subordinate deities--the associates of the wielder of the thunderbolt.

It is not difficult to see how the dwellers in India should have imagined that one god, even though he was the king of the gods, should sometimes need assistance in the management of the winds. The farther the Aryan immigrants travelled south and eastward, the fiercer were the storms they experienced. Hence arose the hymns addressed to the lesser deities who were invoked to assist Indra in his mighty task of controlling them.

Footnotes

^55:* See part ii. chap. iv.

^55:+ Muir, O. S. T., v. 126.

^56:* See chap. viii.

^58:* See part ii, chap. x.

^58:+ Book iv. chap. ix.

^59:* Part iii. chap. viii.

^60:* Book v. chap. xxx.

^61:* One result of this sin of India was the fact that a son of Ravana, a demon king, who ruled in Ceylon, was able to carry him off as a captive, when he made war upon the gods; and it was not until Brahma promised immortality to this warrior, that he consented to release his prisoner. Brahma gave this prince the name of Indrajita (conqueror of Indra).

^61:+ Book vi. chap. v.

^61:++ Meru is a fabulous mountain, supposed to be the centre of the earth. It is believed to be somewhere to the north of the Himalayas. The heavens of the other gods are situated in its vicinity. From the fact that they regarded heaven to be near their former home, it would seen that the Indo-Aryans retained pleasant recollections of the place whence they migrated; or perhaps the inaccessibility of these mountains was a reason for heaven being placed on their summits.

^62:* "Mahabharata," quoted by Ward, ii. 36.

^63:* Muir, O. S. T., v. 82.

^63:+ Ibid. v, 142.

^64:* Muir, O. S. T., v. 140.